When I stumbled my way upon this dock, I thought I’d discovered an awesome little secret spot to see the Rialto and watch the activity on the Grand Canal. I started taking some pictures when I saw a man approaching, holding a closed umbrella above his head. He was a tour-guide, and sure enough my quiet spot on a tiny dock on the Grand Canal was soon overrun by about 20 people. I decided to step back off the dock and wait until they all left, which only took a few minutes.

If you look in the background of this picture, you can see the Rialto bridge.

I took a lot of photos from the same spot on my first evening in Manarola. I was feeling pretty lazy and spent the evening on my hotel balcony. This was one of the last, just before it got too dark to keep taking pictures.

It’s a steep climb up from Manarola on the path to Corniglia. Once you’re up on top though, it’s a fairly flat walk until you get just above Corniglia and start your descent. About half way down, I got this view of my destination.

On our first day in Venice, my dad and I walked across the Rialto bridge and got fairly lost while wandering around on the other side. When it came time to find lunch, we worked our way back towards the Grand Canal and a Vaporetto stop. We hopped on the first one to pull up and were on our way to San Marco square. On the way, I saw the below building with gilded frescoes on its facade. I thought it was just a really fancy house, but it turns out it’s a landmark called the Palazzo Salviati.

I was pretty relaxed upon arrival to Cinque Terre. I was sat on the couch on my balcony enjoying a complimentary bottle of champagne. Then, I was sent scrambling for my camera when I noticed the sun shining out from behind this cloud.

This is actually the first photo I took in Venice while wandering, completely lost, in the general direction of the Rialto. I wound up combining two different photos so that I could have the gondola, and the flag with the lion of Venice unfurled in the same photo.

I’m in Venice his week. This afternoon I spent a bit of time watching the activity on the Grand Canal from a little wooden dock. On the way to Venice I saw a lot of photos where the tied up gondolas were blurred with the movement of the water. I decided to give this effect a try.

You can see a loaded ferry seemingly on a collision course with the rocks in this photo of Manarola’s harbor. What’s actually happening is people are boarding as the ferry is nosed up to the “ferry dock”. I put the ferry dock in quotes because it’s less a dock than a rocky coastline with a couple of cleats on it. The ferry noses up to it, and the crew roll out a gang plank for people to climb aboard as the boat pitches and rolls with the waves.

On my third day in the Cinque Terre, I decided to walk from Manarola to Corniglia. I knew that there would be some walking up involved as Corniglia is on top of the cliffs. I asked at my hotel where the path started and they pointed towards a steep flight of stairs heading up the hill. I asked if that was the extent of the walking up involved and he told me it flattened out at the top of the hill. What I didn’t realise is that you couldn’t really see the extent of the hill until you were at the top of that first set of stairs. It was far higher than I realised!

Still, the uphill walking resulted in a lot of photos as I needed an excuse to catch my breath.

The complex around the Leaning Tower of Pisa has a lot more going on than I realised. I’m pretty sure this Cathedral would have been a popular tourist destination even if the tower hadn’t taken on a slant.

If you’re interested in licensing any of the photos featured here, or if you just want to say hi, please e-mail johnnyp@traverseearth.com.

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